diadem app

[kingsroads]

Player Information

Player: Kates
Contact: allikateor @ plurk & discord
Invitation OR characters played: TDM invite
Are you over 18?: Y! I have a mortgage and back pain, lmao.


Character Information

Character: Jonathan Strange
Canon: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (book, post canon)
Age: approximately 38 or so.
History: Link
Possessions: the clothes on his back: 1810s Regency England style attire (trousers, shoes, shirt, waistcoat, coat) that look like they're in need of a wash.
Weapon: none

Powers/Abilities: fair warning in advance, this part is gonna suuuuuck, mostly because Strange is relatively OP. At this point in canon, he's got ALL sorts of magical skills that are frankly a bit ridiculous. While he does have a ridiculous amount of innate magical talent, it's also honed through actual work and studying books about magic. Strange's magic is a mixture of combinations of already written down spells and him making up and improvising his own shit.

His magic uses a lot of symbolism (ex: part as a whole). While he has a remarkable range in his magic (he gave the Russian king bad dreams while said king was in Russia!), he very rarely does anything larger or more impressive than manipulating the situation at hand. The more precise when naming something in magic, the better. Twice in the series spells have gone slightly off target because nicknames or descriptions were used instead of actual names. For example, a spell cast on Strange was targeted at "the English magician", so Norrell ends up dragged into it as well.

Strange definitely can do more than what we've seen him do in canon, but I'm listing some of what we've seen him do in canon mostly as an example of the sort of magic he does.

- MANIPULATION: A lot of Strange's spells are manipulating something to do or become something else: turning sand into horses of sand to upright a boat, using mud to entrap soldiers, enchanting birds to deliver a message via birdsong, creating false ships out of rain, animating a mannequin made of pottery, turning a woman into a cat, etc. This also ranges to manipulating the environment in the area: changing weather, flattening terrain, rerouting rivers, putting out fires, etc.
- SPYING: He can cast location spells to scry and see where someone is or what they are doing. This can be a specific person (ex: Arabella) or someone more general (ex: my enemy). Noticeably, the scrying spells only work in the realm someone is currently in (sorry guys, he can't check on your friends back in canon).
- TRAVELING THROUGH REALMS: Strange knows how to enter the king's roads, part of the realm of fairy crafted by the Raven King, and hidden behind all the mirrors of England.
- MAGICAL PERCEPTION: Though not the most magically perceptive, Strange can tell when people are cloaking themselves via magic and when magic is being used. He can also magically cloak himself from other's sight / notice.
- NECROMANCY: Strange brought a handful of dead soldiers back to life. When brought back to life, their condition was that of when they died (aka gross and corpsey).
- MISC: Strange can create a magical sleep, induce & enter dreams, and summon fairies. He can manipulate emotions/mental states somewhat, most notably through a tincture of concentrated insanity that he managed to brew. He also helped bring literally all of magic back to England which certainly counts for something. He occasionally has premonitions of the future but as he hasn't exactly realized they're premonitions, it's fairly useless. Strange also moved an entire city to a different country once. Why are magicians like this.

This is not everything he can do! He could feasibly do more things! So time for nerfs because Jesus Christ my dude. Necromancy and traveling through realms are right out. Premonitions are nerfed unless there's prior plotting. Any spells that change the general environment around them work well in a smaller area, would absolutely be hit with that high failure rate if he tries to go bigger (he could make it rain and the rain could cover a storefront, if he tried to make it cover a city then it's blowback time). Any spell that could physically harm or influence another person requires ooc consent. I'm willing to accept more nerfs as needed because I am fully aware that using magic to do things like "move a city" is stupid as hell and I don't want to break the game.

Also as a note, Strange is super fucking cursed at this point in canon, trapped in a pillar of darkness that follows him wherever he goes. I'm going to say that due to weird in-game cosmic horror reasons, said curse does not come to the game with him (weird events where I can fuck with him notwithstanding), but anybody who's magically sensitive can absolutely see that he's cursed to hell and back.


Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?
The most important person in Jonathan Strange's life is Gilbert Norrell. They are complete opposites, two men who are diametrically opposed to each other in personality, style, tactics, and almost everything else. They have two radically different viewpoints on the matter of English magic and how it should be treated. Jonathan Strange served as Gilbert Norrell's apprentice until they broke apart, partly due Strange slamming his book in the press. They were best friends turned enemies, and at one point Norrell's coterie was worried that Strange would do him harm.

Gilbert Norrell is also Jonathan Strange's best friend in the entire world. Strange has always wanted Norrell's recognition, his help, his attention. It's telling that the two of them are at their best at the end of canon, when they're on equal feet. The two men balance each other, Norrell's steady hand countering Strange's recklesness and Strange's strong convictions and worldliness helping to pushback against those who would try to manipulate Norrell. Both men are at their best and most relaxed when they are doing magic with each other. Because for most of canon, there are literally only two magicians in England. Strange and Norrell understand each other in ways that others don't, partly due to the fact that nobody really can understand the experiences they have, partly because they are the only two people who can tolerate the other's bullshit. If Strange hadn't met Norrell, it's doubtful he would become the sort of magician that he is: as much as Strange would bitch about Norrell's lesson plans, he is REMARKABLY flighty and needed that sort of nose-to-the-grindstone mentality to keep at magic, even through the boring bits. But more importantly, Strange would be lonely. He has friends, of course, but nobody has completed him the way that Gilbert Norrell has.

("Hey Strange, don't you have a wife?" .........next question)

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?
Given the choice to do it again, Strange wouldn't blindly wander into the fairy realms like he does in canon. At one point, after summoning a fairy, Strange decides that you know what, he'll just go to the fairy's realm and see what's there. This is despite the fact that he knows it's dangerous, that he knows he should probably prep ahead of time, that he knows this is a bad idea. This sets off a spiral of events that leads to Strange freeing a few people who were trapped in the fairy realms (including his wife!) and bringing magic back to England...but it also ends with him cursed, trapped in a pillar of darkness, and cast away from England and his family. If he just sat down for a moment to think, if he just talked about wandering into a fairy realm with literally anybody who knew a bit about the situation, the curse might have been avoided. Strange is a big reckless idiot who's occasionally his own worst enemy, no case more so than here.

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting?
What the FUCK is a car, guys. Jonathan Strange is from Regency England, circa 1817 or so (technically speaking, he's post-canon, off exploring distant magical realms, otherworldly places beyond the sky but his closest reference point for technology is the 1810s.) Weird stuff he can adapt to. Again, exploring otherworldly places? Weird magical problems? Hell yeah. But things like cars? Electricity? Cellphones? Manual labor? Gross. Even before becoming a magician, Strange was a useless rich layabout who ran an estate for a little bit—this man doesn't know how to mend a cart wheel, let alone patch a tire. The meat and potatoes of the setting will definitely throw him for a loop, as he tries to wrap his head around all the changes that have happened in the past two hundredish years.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?
Strange will absolutely adore the cosmic storms and weird shit. He believes that magicians should be explorers, pushing the boundaries of what they know. He is perfectly fine wandering into unknown situations, adapting and exploring on the fly (sometimes this is good, sometimes the answer to question #2 happens). Likewise, Strange is good at using his magic in inventive ways to solve problems. During his time at war, he became accustomed to having random challenges thrown at his way that he'd have to solve—no help, no research, just him and his own magic. He flourishes in a situation where there's something new and interesting going on and it's up to him to piece out how to adapt to the new and interesting.


Samples

Sample: one & two